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But Still, I’d Be Darned If I Was Going To Be One Of Those Americans Who Stomp Around Italy Barking Commands In Ever-louder English. I Was Going To Be One Of Those Americans Who Traversed Italy With My Forehead Knit In Concentration, Divining Wordsw From Their Latin Roots And Answering By Wedging French Cognates Into Italian Pronunciations Spliced Onto A Standard Spanish Verb Conjugation.

-Barbara Kingsolver

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But Still, I’d Be

Barbara Kingsolver

...

But Still, I’d Be Darned If I Was Going To Be One Of Those Americans Who Stomp Around Italy Barking Commands In Ever-louder English. I Was Going To Be One Of Those Americans Who Traversed Italy With My Forehead Knit In Concentration, Divining Wordsw From Their Latin Roots And Answering By Wedging French Cognates Into Italian Pronunciations Spliced Onto A Standard Spanish Verb Conjugation.

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A Woman Without A Man -- A Condition Of 'manlessness' -- Is Defined As Alone. But A Single Mother Is Less Alone Than The Average Housewife.

Because I Could Not Stop For Death He Kindly Stopped For Me, Or Paused At Least To Strike A Glancing Blow With His Sky-blue Mouth As He Passed.

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No Reporter Worth His Buttons Will Let The Facts Intrude On A Good Story.

Sometimes I Still Have American Dreams. I Mean Literally. I See Microwave Ovens And Exercise Machines And Grocery Store Shelves With 30 Brands Of Shampoo, And I Look At These Things Oddly, In My Dream. I Stand And Think, "what Is All This For? What Is The Hunger That Drives This Need?" I Think It's Fear. Codi, I Hope You Won't Be Hurt By This, But I Don't Think I'll Ever Be Going Back. I Don't Think I Can.

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Before That I Was A Scientist. I Did Research In Population Biology. And That's What I Always Go Back To, It Helps Me To Remember That People Are Not The End Of The World, Although We May Be When It Comes To It. We're Just One Species Among Millions In This World.

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The Happiest People Are The Ones With The Most Community.

Every Betrayal Contains A Perfect Moment, A Coin Stamped Heads Or Tails With Salvation On The Other Side.

The Most Important Thing About A Person Is Always The Thing You Don't Know.

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Asking Questions

I Learned To Write By Reading The Kind Of Books I Wished I'd Written.

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When You Pick Up A Novel From The Bed Side Table, You Put Down Your Own Life At The Same Time And You Become Another Person For The Duration.

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Once You Start Cooking, One Thing Leads To Another. A New Recipe Is As Exciting As A Blind Date. A New Ingredient, Heaven Help Me, Is An Intoxicating Affair.

The March Of Human Progress Seemed Mainly A Matter Of Getting Over That Initial Shock Of Being Here.

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What Life Can I Live That Will Let Me Breathe In And Out And Love Somebody Or Something And Not Run Off Screaming Into The Woods?

What Keeps You Going Isn't Some Fine Destination But Just The Road You're On, And The Fact That You Know How To Drive.

It's A Funny Thing: People Often Ask How I Discipline Myself To Write. I Can't Begin To Understand The Question. For Me, The Discipline Is Turning Off The Computer And Leaving My Desk To Do Something Else.

I'm Not Pretending To Be Ingenuous; I Know What I'm Doing.

I Lost A Child," She Said, Meeting Lusa's Eyes Directly. "i Thought I Wouldn't Live Through It. But You Do. You Learn To Love The Place Somebody Leaves Behind For You.

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Nine-tenths Of Human Law Is About Possession.

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If The Lord Hasn't Got A Boyfriend Lined Up For Me To Marry, That's His Business.

I Don't Understand How Any Good Art Could Fail To Be Political.

It's Terrible To Lose Somebody, But It's Also True That Some People Never Have Anybody To Lose, And I Think That's Got To Be So Much Worse.

A Writer's Occupational Hazard: I Think Of Eavesdropping As Minding My Business.

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The Reason Most People Have Kids Is Because They Get Pregnant.

It's Tough To Break Yourself As News To A Town That Already Knows You.

If We Can't, As Artists, Improve On Real Life, We Should Put Down Our Pencils And Go Bake Bread.

It's The Same Struggle For Each Of Us, And The Same Path Out: The Utterly Simple, Infinitely Wise, Ultimately Defiant Act Of Loving One Thing And Then Another, Loving Our Way Back To Life.

Plot Comes First. The Plot Is The Archictecture Of Your Novel. You Wouldn't Build A House Without A Plan. If I Wrote Without A Plot, It Would Just Be A Pile Of Bricks. Characters Are Your Servants. They Must Serve Your Plot.

What A Writer Can Do, What A Fiction Writer Or A Poet Or An Essay Writer Can Do Is Re-engage People With Their Own Humanity.

Be Still, And The World Is Bound To Turn Herself Inside Out To Entertain You. Everywhere You Look, Joyful Noise Is Clanging To Drown Out Quiet Desperation.

But Anatole Said Suddenly, 'don't Expect God's Protection In Places Beyond God's Dominion. It Will Only Make You Feel Punished. I'm Warning You. When Things Go Bad, You Will Blame Yourself.' 'what Are You Telling Me?' 'i Am Telling You What I'm Telling You. Don't Try To Make Life A Mathematics Problem With Yourself In The Center And Everything Coming Out Equal. When You Are Good, Bad Things Can Still Happen. And If You Are Bad, You Can Still Be Lucky.

We're Surrounded By Mandates, And I Believe That Literature Should Be Mandate-free. I Feel Very Strongly About That.

Pay Attention To Your Passions. They Are The Key To Starting And Finishing The Book You Are Meant To Write. I Don't Believe In Talent. I Believe In Passion.

Wars And Elections Are Both Too Big And Too Small To Matter In The Long Run. The Daily Work - That Goes On, It Adds Up.

Wherever I Am, Let Me Never Forget To Distinguish Want From Need

As A Biologist, I Can't Think Of Myself As Anything But An Animal Among Animals And Plant.

I’ve Seen How You Can’t Learn Anything When You’re Trying To Look Like The Smartest Person In The Room.

The Standard Approach Has Been To Pump Up The Dosage Of Chemicals ... Twenty Percent Of These Approved-for-use Pesticides Are Listed By The Epa As Carcinogenic In Humans.

Bitter Words Normally Evaporate With The Moisture Of Breath, After A Quarrel. In Order To Become Permanent, They Require Transcribers, Reporters, Complicit Black Hearts.

Every Time I Step Onto An Airplane, I Turn To The Right And Take A Good, Hard Stare Into The Maw Of The Engine. I Don't Know What I'm Looking For. I Just Do It.

If You Can't Dress Expensive, Dress Memorable.

A Novel Can Educate To Some Extent, But First A Novel Has To Entertain. That's The Contract With The Reader: You Give Me Ten Hours And I'll Give You A Reason To Turn Every Page. I Have A Commitment To Accessibility. I Believe In Plot. I Want An English Professor To Understand The Symbolism While At The Same Time I Want The People I Grew Up With - Who May Not Often Read Anything But The Sears Catalog - To Read My Books.

So One Time When I Was Working In This Motel One Of The Toilets Leaked And I Had To Replace The Flapper Ball. Here's What It Said On The Package; I Kept It Till I Knew It By Heart: 'please Note. Parts Are Included For All Installations, But No Installation Requires All Of The Parts.' That's Kind Of My Philosophy About Men. I Don't Think There's An Installation Out There That Could Use All My Parts.

Tall And Straight I May Appear, But I Will Always Be Ada Inside. A Crooked Little Person Trying To Tell The Truth. The Power Is In The Balance: We Are Our Injuries, As Much As We Are Our Successes

Watching Italians Eat (especially Men, I Have To Say) Is A Form Of Tourism The Books Don't Tell You About. They Close Their Eyes, Raise Their Eyebrows Into Accent Marks, And Make Sounds Of Acute Appreciation. It's Fairly Sexy. Of Course I Don't Know How These Men Behave At Home, If They Help With The Cooking Or Are Vain And Boorish And Mistreat Their Wives. I Realized Mediterranean Cultures Have Their Issues. Fine, Don't Burst My Bubble. I Didn’t Want To Marry These Guys, I Just Wanted To Watch. (p. 247)

He Had Senile Dementia And Liked To Go Outside Naked, But He Could Still Do Two Things Perfectly: Win At Checkers And Write Out Prescriptions.

Listen. Slide The Weight From Your Shoulders And Move Forward. You Are Afraid You Might Forget, But You Never Will. You Will Forgive And Remember.

Because I Write Fiction That Is Based In The Real World, It's Going To Lead People Into Some Of The Modern Dilemmas And Concerns And Even Catastrophes That They Will Think About In A New Way.

What You Lose In Blindness Is The Space Around You, The Place Where You Are, And Without That You Might Not Exist. You Could Be Nowhere At All.

Once The Rains Abated, My Father's Garden Thrived In The Heat Like An Unleashed Temper.

Every Life Is Different Because You Passed This Way And Touched History... Listen Being Dead Is Not Worse Than Being Alive. It Is Different Though. You Could Say The View Is Larger.

But I've Swallowed My Pride Before, That's For Sure. I'm Practically Lined With My Mistakes On The Inside Like A Bad-wallpapered Bathroom.

Organization Is The Religion Of The Single Parent.

... Urban Friends Ask Me How I Can Stand Living Here, 'so Far From Everything?' When I Hear This Question Over The Phone, I'm Usually Looking Out The Window At A Forest, A Running Creek, And A Vegetable Garden, Thinking: Define Everything.

It Takes Your Sleeping Self Years To Catch Up To Where You Really Are. ... When You Go On A Trip, In Your Dreams You Will Still Be Home. Then After You've Come Home You'll Dream Of Where You Were. It's A Kind Of Jet Lag Of The Consciousness.

Sometimes I Prayed For Baby Jesus To Make Me Good, But Baby Jesus Didn't.

Hunger Of The Body Is Altogether Different From The Shallow, Daily Hunger Of The Belly. Those Who Have Known This Kind Of Hunger Cannot Entirely Love, Ever Again, Those Who Have Not.

All Of The Promises Of Politicians, Generals, Madmen, And Crusaders That War Can Create Peace Have Yet To Be Borne Out.

If You Want Sweet Dreams, You've Got To Live A Sweet Life.

There Is A Strange Moment In Time, After Something Horrible Happens, When You Know It's True, But You Haven't Told Anyone Yet.

...whatever Is Lovely, Whatever Is Gracious, If There Is Anything Worthy Of Praise, Think About These Things. And Peace Will Be With You.

You Can’t Replace People You Love With Other People…but You Can Trust That You’re Not Going To Run Out Of People To Love.

They All Attended Hester's Church, Which Dellarobia Viewed As A Complicated Pyramid Scheme Of Moral Debt And Credit Resting Ultimately On The Shoulders Of The Lord, But Rife With Middle Managers.

Pyramid Schemes

The Most Assiduous Task Of Parenting Is To Divine The Difference Between Boundaries And Bondage.

If You're Standing In The Manure Pile, It's Somebody's Job To Mention The Stink.

I Did It To Win Love, And To Prove Myself Capable. Not To Move Mountains. In My Opinions, Mountains Don't Move. They Only Look Changed When You Look Down On Them From Great Height.

Given My Own Circumstances, I Find That Anything Can Turn Out To Belong Nearly Anywhere.

Everything You're Sure Is Right Can Be Wrong In Another Place.

When I Look Out The Window, I Exhale A Prayer Of Thanks For The Color Green, For My Children's Safety, For The Simple Acts Of Faith Like Planting A Garden That Helped See Us Through Another Spring, Another Summer. And I Inhale Some Kind Of Promise To Protect My Kids' Hopes And Good Intentions We Began With In This Country. Freedom Of Speech, The Protection Of Diversity - These Are The Most Important Ingredients Of American Civil Life And My Own Survival. If I Ever Took Them For Granted, I Don't Know.

Sadness Is More Or Less Like A Head Cold - With Patience, It Passes. Depression Is Like Cancer.

Prayer Had Always Struck Me As More Or Less A Glorified Attempt At A Business Transaction.

Lies Are Infinite In Number, And The Truth So Small And Singular.

People Ask Without Wanting To Know.

I Know I Have To Write About The Things That Keep Me Awake At Night.

Now I'm Starting To Think He Wasn't Supposed To Be My Whole Life, He Was Just This Doorway To Me.

In The Long Run, Most Of Us Spend About Fifteen Minutes Total In The Entanglements Of Passion, And The Rest Of Our Days Looking Back On It, Humming The Tune.

I Can Count All The Ways In Which Being A Mother Has Enriched My Understanding Of The World, Of Character, My Sense Of The Future And My Attachment To It. I Can't Imagine What Kind Of Writer I'd Be If I Didn't Have My Kids.

When People Are Frightened About Going Hungry And Paying Their Mortgages, A Scarcity Model Begins To Prevail; They Fear Someone Else Will Get Their Piece Of The Pie.

It's Surprising How Much Memory Is Built Around Things Unnoticed At The Time.

My Morning Begins With Trying Not To Get Up Before The Sun Rises. But When I Do, It's Because My Head Is Too Full Of Words, And I Just Need To Get To My Desk And Start Dumping Them Into A File. I Always Wake With Sentences Pouring Into My Head.

Restraint Equals Indulgence

Something In Me Was Always Watching Life From The Outside, Permanently Obsessed With The Notion Of Belonging Vs. Not-belonging [to A Group]. It Did Not Make For A Happy Childhood, But It Was Excellent Training For A Writer.

It Kills You To See Them Grow Up. But I Guess It Would Kill You Quicker If They Didn't.

From The Fallen Tree Everybody Makes Firewood.

In My Own Worst Seasons I've Come Back From The Colorless World Of Despair By Forcing Myself To Look Hard, For A Long Time, At A Single Glorious Thing: A Flame Of Red Geranium Outside My Bedroom Window. And Then Another: My Daughter In A Yellow Dress. And Another: The Perfect Outline Of A Full, Dark Sphere Behind The Crescent Moon. Until I Learned To Be In Love With My Life Again. Like A Stroke Victim Retraining New Parts Of The Brain To Grasp Lost Skills, I Have Taught Myself Joy, Over And Over Again(15).

God Doesn’t Need To Punish Us. He Just Grants Us A Long Enough Life To Punish Ourselves.

I Didn't Study Writing In School, I Studied Biology As An Undergraduate And Graduate Student. So I Think That I Write Fiction In The Scientific Way. I Love Invention, Obviously; I Love Creation Of Character. But I Do Feel Very Rooted In The Real World, Even In The Way That I Create Characters.

The Last Generation's Worst Fears Became The Next One's B-grade Entertainment.

It Takes Some Courage To Write Fiction About Politically Controversial Topics. The Dread Is You'll Be Labeled A Political Writer.

Controversial Topics

He Was My Father. I Own Half His Genes, And All Of His History. Believe This: The Mistakes Are Part Of The Story. I Am Born Of A Man Who Believed He Could Tell Nothing But The Truth, While He Set Down For All Time The Poisonwood Bible.

Over The Last Decade Our Country Has Lost An Average Of 300 Farms A Week. Large Or Small, Each Of Those Was The Lifes Work Of A Real Person Or Family, People Who Built Their Lives Around A Promise And Watched It Break.

Vengeance Does Not Subtract Any Numbers From The Equation Of Murder; It Only Adds Them.

I Never Think That Anything I'm Writing Is Bluntly Political In Any Way. I'm Not Going For Commentary.

The Friend Who Holds Your Hand And Says The Wrong Thing Is Made Of Dearer Stuff Than The One Who Stays Away.

Stop A Minute, Right Where You Are. Relax Your Shoulders, Shake Your Head And Spine Like A Dog Shaking Off Cold Water. Tell That Imperious Voice In Your Head To Be Still.

In Exchange For His First Taste Of Powdered Milk, Pascal Showed Me A Tree We Could Climb To Find A Bird's Nest. After We Handled And Examined The Pink-skinned Baby Birds, He Popped One Of Them Into His Mouth Like A Jujube. It Seemed To Please Him A Lot. He Offered A Baby Bird To Me, Pantomiming That I Should Eat It. I Understood Perfectly Well What He Meant, But I Refused. He Did Not Seem Disappointed To Have To Eat The Whole Brood Himself.

No Matter What Kind Of Night You're Having, Morning Always Wins.

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